CN Rail downplays oil-by-rail plans to West Coast

CALGARY – CN Rail is downplaying plans to ship Alberta bitumen to Canada’s West Coast by rail, citing a lack of infrastructure needed to transfer carloads of the extra-thick oil onto ocean-going tankers.

“We’re not involved in anything on the West Coast, zero, zilch,” James Cairns, vice-president, petroleum and chemicals with the Montreal-based railroad, said Wednesday on the sidelines of an energy conference in Calgary.

“There is no compelling drive from our customers” to build a terminal at Prince Rupert, B.C. or ship product to the West Coast, he said. “There is no active project there. As much as people want to talk to it and have a new lightning rod … there’s nothing going on.”

B.C. and Alberta this week said rail would fill a transportation “void” for Alberta’s heavy oil to the coast if Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline and a plan by Kinder Morgan to nearly triple capacity on its Trans Mountain system to the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby are stymied.